Gerd Mink/Klaus
Wachtel
Guide to “Genealogical Queries – Acts”
(Phase 3)
Preface
This guide is based on Gerd Mink’s “Guide to
‘Genealogical Queries’ (Version 2.0)”, online here
<http://intf.uni-muenster.de/cbgm2/guide_en.html>.
“Genealogical Queries – Acts (Phase 3)” is designed to
be used in connection with the Editio
Critica Maior (ECM) of the Acts of the Apostles (2017).
“Genealogical Queries” provides five web-based
modules that permit investigation of genealogical relationships inherent in the
New Testament textual tradition.
The data
brought together in the Editio Critica
Maior (ECM) has been analysed and structured on the basis of the Coherence-Based
Genealogical Method (CBGM).
One important
feature of the CBGM is its potential to improve results through an iterative
procedure. First, local stemmata of the variants are constructed taking into
account pregenealogical coherence (see
below). As a whole, the local stemmata comprise a first overview of
genealogical relationships between the manuscript texts that attest the
genealogically arranged variants. Based on this newly derived external
criterion, the local stemmata are put to the test and revised.
The
printed volume represents the result of the third iteration through the entire
material (phase 3). The database behind phase 3, however, reflects the state of
work that resulted from phase 2. So the user can review how we worked on the
text and the local stemmata in phase 3, which forms the basis of the printed
edition. The state of work reached at the end of phase 3, consequently, would
be the basis for phase 4 which will be carried out, at the latest, when a
second edition of ECM Acts is due.
Hence, what we
present in “Genealogical Queries” is
still a work in progress.
The software’s
layout, functionality and user guidance will continue to be enhanced. Even now
the program can be employed to examine the data, assess the stability of
relationships, and so on. Due to continuing revision of the local stemmata,
results obtained with the program today may differ from those obtained
tomorrow. Nevertheless, it remains a useful analytical tool. Among many current
uses, the program can be employed to examine relationships between manuscripts,
highlighting various degrees of stability, thus helping to establish whether
the ongoing revision process is likely to change ancestor-descendant
relationships in particular cases.
Important: When
results achieved by the CBGM are used, attention has to be paid to the data
source on which they are based. This applies to “Genealogical Queries” itself
as well as to literature.
0. Database and Premises
The ECM Acts
apparatus, which work in Phase 3 was based on, has 7466 variant passages. For
every instance a local stemma of variants has been created. Each stemma
represents a hypothesis about which variant originates from which, thus
declaring variants as prior (source variants) or posterior
in their relations with one another. (In cases where a hypothesis appeared to
be too unreliable, we refrained from naming a specific source variant and
entered a question mark in the source field.)
The source
variant is not posterior to any other variant of the same passage. It
represents the starting point for the entire textual history at this place, and
is thus considered to be part of the initial text of the tradition.
Generally, the initial text is consistent with the base text of the ECM. There
are, however, a number of instances where we have abstained from
re-constructing the initial text by means of the CBGM, and such cases have been
treated as if they were lacunae in the initial text. A hypothetical witness “A”
was assigned to the hypothetical initial text.
The local
stemmata of the variants are based on the usual text critical methods. Additionally,
at the first compilation of these stemmata, the pre-genealogical coherence
was examined. This type of coherence is solely based on the agreement of
witnesses and is characterized by the statement:
Witness x agrees with witness y in
n out of all cases (or p % of cases).
If the
pre-genealogical coherence between the attestations of two variants is very
low, a genealogical relation between those two variants can be regarded as
highly unlikely.
The local
stemmata of the variants also establish a genealogical relation between the
witnesses. This results from the fact that when two witnesses are compared
across all variant passages, one is associated with a source variant more often
than the other (unless the respective counts are equal). A genealogical
coherence emerges, consistent with two statements:
In n out of all cases (or p
% of cases), witness x reads the
source variant of the variant associated with witness y.
In n out of all cases (or p
% of cases), witness y reads the source
variant of the variant of witness x.
This results in one of the following three statements being true:
Witness x reads the respective source variant in more cases than does witness y.
Witness y reads more cases of the
respective source variant than does witness x.
Witness x and witness y read the
respective source variant with equal
frequency.
If the first of
the three statements applies, witness x
is a potential
ancestor of witness y. If the
second statement applies, then witness y
is a potential ancestor of witness x.
If the third statement applies, there is no genealogical direction between the
two witnesses.
Important! We consider as a witness, not the manuscript itself,
but the state of the text (without corrections) in a continuous text
manuscript. Because the text of a manuscript can be much older than the
manuscript itself, a witness that is preserved in a late manuscript (e.g. 10th
century) can be a potential ancestor of a witness preserved in an early
manuscript (e.g. 5th century).
The stemmatic
coherence, which is the definite, simplest hypothesis about the most
elementary genealogical connection between all witnesses, has not yet been
implemented in the “Genealogical Queries”
facility.
This module documents the local stemmata, which are
graphical representations of the presumed genealogy of variants. Local stemmata
are only included for variants assigned to the first hands of Greek continuous
text manuscripts.
In order to display a local stemma, a variant address
that conforms to the ECM system has to be entered into the input form using
numbers for chapter, verse, and beginning and ending word(s) of the variant
passage.
As a rule, variant a
appears at the top of the local stemma, being the text of the reconstructed
initial text “A”. A question mark is placed at the top of the local stemma in
passages where we abstained from a reconstruction of the initial text for the
purposes of genealogical analyses (e.g. 1:6/10). A question mark was also used
whenever the source of a variant could not be determined (e.g. 2:36/18-30). In
such cases where we have here a particularly impressive example, “?” does not
represent one common source variant. Instead, the respective source variant, to which the arrows point, is uncertain.
In the present example, the source variant is uncertain in five
instances.
Note: A local stemma of variants may contain two instances of the same variant
(e.g. 2:36/18-30). For example, a variant d
may appear as d1 and d2. In such cases, a variant has been
divided logically into two due to profound genealogical divergences. This makes
it possible to relate different parts of the attestation to witnesses of
different variants.
If variant a is
split as in 2:40/10, the a
attestation has an incoherent part. Consequently a “?” is placed in the source
field for this part. In the present example, variant a is identified as initial text and as the source of variant b. A
part of the a attestation, however,
does not align with the rest of the witnesses supporting a but has its first potential ancestor in the b attestation, if connectivity is set to “Low” in the “Coherence in
Attestation” module (see below). Several reasons are conceivable for this
situation. The divergent witnesses may have, all or in part, developed variant a from b independently; some or all may have copied a from closely related but now lost witnesses of a; or they may have copied a via contamination with a lost or still
extant witness of a. At any rate, the
genealogy of the incoherent part of the a
attestation is questionable and must not be treated like straightforward
instances of a>b relationships.
2. “Potential Ancestors and Descendants” Module
a. Purpose of the Module
This module
analyses the genealogical coherence between witnesses and can thus
differentiate between potential ancestors and descendants. The relation between
ancestor and descendant, and thus the genealogical coherence, is established by
the proportion of variants in a witness that are prior (source variants) or
posterior compared to the corresponding proportions of the compared witnesses.
The degree of agreement determines the strength of the genealogical coherence.
The
genealogical coherence between ancestor and descendant is determined by which
witness contains more prior variants, and the strength of coherence corresponds
to the level of agreement between ancestor and descendant.
The “Potential
Ancestors and Descendants” module allows a sound judgment to be formed about
the text-historical environment of a witness. It also permits a good guess to
be made concerning which witnesses have the potential to be ancestors in a
stemma.
b. The Data Entry Form
In general, Gregory-Aland manuscript numbers are
used to identify witnesses in all data entry forms. Normally, only continuous
text manuscripts and lectionaries are processed; however, the option to include
fragmentary texts exists. The option to include fragments will normally be
waived because (1) due to their small extent they are not very significant and
therefore only rarely play a role in the genealogical analysis, and (2) they
undermine clarity. When included, minor fragments often occupy the beginning or
end of the list of results. If they cover passages that barely vary then, they
tend to exhibit 100% agreement with nearly all witnesses. On the other hand,
they tend towards the opposite extreme in passages where there is a lot of
variation. (As an example, take witness
307 and choose the ‘Include Fragments’ option.)
In addition to
the potential ancestors, the potential descendants can be displayed as well.
This is of interest if one wants to see the entire close environment of a
witness and especially if one assumes an unusual witness to have no more
descendants.
The data source is set to “All chapters of
Acts” by default, but it can be restricted to individual chapters. Choosing a
single chapter may be interesting if there is reason to assume that the textual
character of a witness changes so that it may have had different exemplars.
c. The Result
The header
displays four percentages, referring to the witness in question, which help to
put the agreement values in the table below into perspective: the share of
variants pertaining to the majority text (MT
and MT/P)1, the
percentage of the average agreement (AA)
and the median agreement (MA) with
all witnesses included.
MT indicates the percentage of majority readings at passages where the respective manuscript is extant and MT is defined. MT/P indicates the share of majority readings on the basis of all variant passages where the respective manuscript is extant.2
With the
default options, the result presents the potential ancestors (W2 = witness 2) of the selected witness
(W1 = witness 1) sorted in
descending order according to the degree of agreement with W1. (Try witness 81, for
example.) Levels of agreement are found as percentages under the heading PERC1 (= percentage 1) or as absolute
numbers under the heading EQ (=
equal). These values are given with reference to the total number of variant
passages that can be found in both W1 and W2. This total appears under the
heading PASS (= passages). The
highest possible number is 7466, if both compared witnesses contain all variant
passages of Acts.
With all
genealogical evaluations, the assumed priority or posteriority of variants
plays a decisive role. Where variants are called prior or posterior in the
following, these statements refer to assumptions established in the local
stemmata of variants.
The column W1<W2 shows the number of cases
where W2 has a variant prior to the one in W1, meaning a variant from which the
variant in W1 has presumably developed. The column W1>W2 shows the number of cases where W1 contains the prior
variant. A higher value in W1<W2 compared to W1>W2 characterizes W2 as
potential ancestor. The difference between both values also makes a statement
about the stability of the relation of W1 and W2 (the so-called “particular
textual flow”). To give an example, the relation between 424 and 607 can be
inverted if the genealogy of their variants is changed at only one instance.
If the values
in W1<W2 and in W1>W2 are equal, there is no genealogical direction
between the witnesses. In this case, a “-” appears in column D (= direction). These undirected
genealogical relationships must be taken into account, especially in cases of a
close relationship between W1 and W2 (cf. 607 and 642). In such instances, too,
the situation would change if the genealogy of variants were assessed differently
at only one passage. The result would be a directed genealogical relationship.
In column NR (= number), the potential ancestors
are ranked according to their degree of agreement. If ancestors have the same
degree of agreement they receive the same ranking number. If the option “Include Fragments and Undirected Relationships”
has been chosen, the column NR contains a “0”
if (1) an undirected genealogical relationship exists (e.g. 642 in the table
referring to 607), or (2) if the number of variant passages shared by W1 and W2
does not reach a half of the passages extant in W1 (cf. 206s, 0294, 0120 for
W1=607). If a genealogical direction nevertheless exists between the witnesses,
a “>” will appear in column D in
the second case.
At any rate,
the “0” means that the pertinent witnesses under W2 are not included as
potential ancestors in subsequent genealogical evaluations.
A high rank in column NR improves the odds that a
potential ancestor is also a stemmatic ancestor. Since a stemma should explain
the state of a text based on as small a number of contamination sources as
possible, even a highly ranked (which means very similar) witness can be
superfluous when constructing a stemma. This is because there may be one or
more other highly ranked witnesses as contamination sources that explain all
variants of the descendant without needing the one that has a higher rank.
According to Ockham’s razor, a stemma that requires fewer witnesses is
preferable to one with more.
In column UNCL (= unclear) one can find the
number of variant passages where no decision has been made about whether W1 or
W2 contains the prior variant.
Column NOREL (= no relation) displays the
number of variant passages where W1 and W2 read different variants that have no
direct relation to each other (e.g. if W1 reads variant b and W2 variant c, but
the prior variant for both is variant a).
If the option “Show Descendants” is selected, potential
descendants are also displayed. The list conforms in structure to the one for
potential ancestors except in this case the values in column W1<W2 are less
than those in column W1>W2.
d. How to interpret the result?
(Example witness 307, default options)
The
hypothetical initial text (witness “A”) occupies the highest rank among the
potential ancestors of witness 307. If “A” is near the top of such a list,
witness W1 is of special interest. In such cases, W1 may reasonably be presumed
to have conserved the oldest text at some instances without the intermediation
of any other surviving witness. However, the level of agreement also has to be
taken into account. Since nearly all textual links are missing in the oldest
textual tradition, a value of more than 91% agreement with “A” is good. This
value is surpassed only by 24 witnesses in relationship with “A”.
The following parameters may help to assess which
agreement values can be regarded as relatively high or low. “A” agrees with the
majority text (MT) at 86.33%. The average agreement (AA) of all witnesses with
“A” is 89.30%. The median (MA) (above and below which the agreement values of
respectively one half of the witnesses are positioned) is 89.29%. Tip: A list
of all relations with “A” in descending order is displayed, if you enter “A” in
this module.
307 agrees with the majority text (MT) at 86.28%. The
average agreement (AA) of all witnesses with 307 is 86.66%. The median (MA)
(above and below which the agreement values of respectively one half of the
witnesses are positioned) is 87.00%.
The special
quality of 307 is demonstrated already by the small number of witnesses in its
list of potential ancestors. At 88.5-87.1 %, the agreements with 03, 33, 02,
and 01 (all of them first-rank witnesses) are still good for older levels of
the tradition. They can all be considered as sources of contamination taking
into account that the intermediate witnesses, by which the connection to the
earliest layers of transmission could be established, are obviously lost. Nevertheless,
close relatives of 307 from later levels of the tradition survive, including many
witnesses whose agreement values are clearly higher than the MT value of 307,
but still do not rank among its potential ancestors.
If the option
“Show Descendants” is chosen, a large number of close relatives of 307 are
displayed featuring high agreement values. With these, again, the differences
between the figures under W1<W2 and W1>W2 have to be considered. If the
difference is minor, a potential descendant could become a potential ancestor
by changing a few local stemmata.
A comparison of
as many such tables as possible will make it very clear how the different
values of agreement and the characteristic way these values decrease should be
understood.
(Example
witness 81, Option “Show Descendants”)
The list of potential
ancestors is much shorter than that of 307. It shows only two witnesses apart
from “A”, 03, and P74. “A” is in first place at an excellent agreement value, exceeded
only by the values of 03 and P74.
There are no particularly
close relatives among the potential descendants. Only the closest one, 02,
features differences between W1<W2 and W1>W2 high enough to consider a possible
reversal of the genealogical relationship. If the assessment of only four
passages would change in favor of the variants supported by 02, this witness
would become a potential ancestor of 81.
(Example
witness 1735, Option “Show Descendants”)
1735, too, is a
witness without very close relatives, as is shown by both the list of potential
ancestors and descendants. 18 and 35 appear at ranks 1 and 2, “A” at rank 4. 18
and 35 represent the Kr strand of the Byzantine text. As 1735 agrees
less with the majority text than with these witnesses, it shows a clear
tendency towards the Kr text. The relative closeness to “A” suggests
a high quality copy in terms of the scribe’s diligence.
3. “Comparison of Witnesses” Module
a. Purpose of the Module
This module
allows comparison of the relationship of witnesses from writing to writing in
order to detect any changes of Vorlagen or, rather, changes of contamination
sources. If there are any conspicuous changes of the agreement values or the
values under W1<W2 and W1>W2 for part of the corpus, the matter can be
pursued by looking at the potential ancestors of the witnesses based on the
data of single letters.
b. The Data Entry Form
The witnesses
to be compared can be entered here. Principle uses of this module include
comparison of a witness with the hypothetical initial text (witness “A”) and
comparison of witnesses that are relatively closely related.
c. The Result
The result
places the compared witnesses under W1
and W2, and the genealogical
direction of the relationship under DIR
(= direction). (The DIR column has “-->” if W1>W2 has a higher value than
W1<W2, or “<--” for the opposite case.) Figures in a row refer to the
letter given under the heading CHAP
(= chapter); in the last row (CHAP =
Act), values for the entire corpus are shown. Column NR contains the rank in the list of potential ancestors of the
descendant witness, based on the data source indicated in the WRIT column. All
other columns have the same meaning as in the “Potential Ancestors and Descendants” module.
If a chapter is
missing under CHAP, at least one of the compared witnesses is lacking there. By
selecting “View Differences”, the
diverging variants of the compared witnesses can be displayed chapter by
chapter. The table displays the compared witnesses under W1 and W2 and the
respective variants under VAR1 and VAR2. The entry under DIR indicates the genealogical
direction between the variants. “U” (= unclear) appears in this column if no
decision was made regarding the pair of variants in question. “N” (= no
relation) appears if no direct relation between the variants was established.
d. How to interpret the result?
(Example witness “A” and 81)
There is a high
level of agreement for each data source, with extremely high percentages in chapters
3, 8 and 24. There are no entries for chapters 5 and 6 because 81 has a large
lacuna there.
(Example witness 81 and 03)
The special
quality of 81 is confirmed by the fact that it has more priority readings than
03 in several chapters.
(Example witness 18 and 35)
These two
important representatives of the Byzantine text are very similar. The difference
of the values under W1<W2 and W1>W2 is either very insignificant or zero.
It is not significant that the genealogical direction in chapters 1, 15, 24,
and 28 differs from the general trend. The differences are so slight as to
indicate a weakly developed trend, if any.
4. “Coherence in Attestations” Module
a. Purpose of the Module
This module
allows for the creation of so-called textual
flow diagrams within attestations and also displays possible connections to
attestations of other variants at the same variant passage.
Excursus: Textual flow is the consequence of a genealogical decline between
the witnesses. The textual flow contains variants that constitute agreement or
disagreement between witnesses.
We
differentiate between different kinds of textual flow. The general textual flow commonly proceeds from earlier to later forms
of text. The position of any witness within the general textual flow can be
determined by the genealogical coherence of its closest relatives (compare the
“Potential Ancestors and Descendants”
Module). The particular textual flow
is the one that can be established between ancestor and descendant
respectively. It contains variants adopted by the descendant and those taken by
the descendant as starting points of change. The global textual flow prevails within a global stemma of the
witnesses and presumes stemmatic coherence, i.e. a definite hypothesis about
which preferably small combination of ancestors entirely explains the text of a
descendant. The local textual flow
is the one taking place within a certain attestation or within the attestations
of all variants at a certain text passage. The local textual flow can be based
upon genealogical or stemmatic coherence.
This module looks at local textual flow based on
genealogical coherencies.
b. The Data Entry Form
The variant address should be entered based
on the common address system of the ECM (chapter, verse, word number of the
beginning and end of the variant passage, and letter address of the variant).
Normally, the
entire book of Acts should be selected as the data source. The genealogical coherencies for the relations of the
witnesses that have been collected by analysis of the entire corpus will then form
the base of the TFD.
If you have
selected the “Book of Acts” option and
find incoherencies that might suggest witnesses within the corpus have changed Vorlage, you could instead select a
single chapter as the base.
It is possible
to conduct an evaluation of the connectivity
of a variant. Connectivity is the capacity of a variant to connect ancestors
and descendants genealogically. It depends on two parameters: (1) the degree of
relationship of the witnesses involved, that is on their general level of
agreement, and (2) the character of the variant. In other words, for closely
related witnesses even the agreement of insignificant details supports the
relationship — the common variants are connective. With a lower degree of
general agreement, one would rather consider multiple coincidental emergence of
a variant if its character advises us to do so. In cases where coincidental
multiple emergence is unlikely, the variant in question is connective, even for
witnesses that have a lesser degree of relationship.
Depending on
the assessment of connectivity, the potential ancestors are analyzed as long as
the appropriate ranking number is not exceeded. The default setting is “Lower”. This option is recommendable for
Acts because, in comparison with the Catholic Letters, there is less conspicuous
variation in general. The option “Higher”
can be selected, if the variant appears more connective than usual. Moreover, a
user-defined value may be entered. The option “Absolute” enforces coherence of all witnesses of the same variant.
This option offers a good way to see how remote the witnesses of an attestation
are, since the ranking number from the list of potential ancestors is displayed
(see below).
It is possible
to select the variant that constitutes the initial
text of the tradition (“Initial Reading”, IR). In the default setting, the
program assumes that this is variant a,
regardless of whether or not a decision about the initial text was made in the
local stemma. The user can set any variant of a passage as initial or leave the
decision open by entering “?”.
c. The Result
The result is a
graph displaying the local textual flow based on genealogical coherencies. The
arrows point respectively from the (potential) ancestor to the (potential)
descendant within the attestation. If one looked up a list of potential
ancestors for a descendant in the graph shown here in the module “Potential Ancestors and Descendants”,
one would find a ranking number in column NR for the ancestor from which the
descendant in this graph is derived. If this ranking number is 1, it will not
be noted for the descendant in the graph since this case dominates. If the
ranking number is greater than 1, it will be displayed together with the
descendant after a slash. The level of connectivity selected in the data entry
form determines up to which ranking number the potential ancestors will be
charted on the graph.
If no potential
ancestor can be found for a descendant within the same attestation, then the
attestations of other variants at this place will be searched. In each case,
together with the corresponding potential ancestor, the locations (variants)
will be displayed outside the frame that encircles the current attestation.
Next, the ranking number the potential ancestor obtains in the ancestor list of
the descendant will be displayed along with the identification of the ancestor.
Thus, one can
obtain an overview as to whether or not a variant can be deduced from the
current variant.
The contents of
the graph can also be displayed as a table
(“Show
Table”). This is useful if the course of the arrows is too confusing.
In the chart, the witnesses will be arranged in generations (G1-G16). G0 is the generation of witnesses
located with the variant from which the current one is deducible. The
identification of this variant is to
be found under VARID. N0-N15 contain the ranking numbers. The reading of such a chart will be explained in
the next example.
There is also a
“Show
Local Stemma” option that can be used to display a local stemma of the
variants at the selected passage. Such local variant stemmata have been created
for all variant passages in order to calculate the genealogical coherence of
the witnesses in a writing or in the entire corpus based on the variant
relations. In the module “Coherence in Attestations”, those genealogical
coherencies of witnesses are projected back to the variants of a variant
passage. In doing so, it may happen that relations presumed in the local stemma
of the variants are not compatible with the result obtained in this module
(e.g. if the local stemma deduces one variant from another one for which there
is no relation through genealogically coherent witnesses according to the
result of this module). Inconsistencies like this one are important indications
that the local stemma should probably be revised. The local stemmata are based
on genealogical data as collected for the single writings. Note that variant
identifiers can be split (e.g. b into
b1 and b2). Cf. the explanations on the module “Local Stemmata”.
d. How to interpret the result?
Example 11:8/12-18c, default options
The entire
attestation of the variant is visible in the frame, divided into two branches.
In view of the selected connectivity, this result indicates that the variant
may have evolved twice. With Connectivity set to 10 (Con=10), the textual flow
diagram (TFD) indicates that the potential ancestors of 876 and 1739 up to rank
number 10 support another variants than c.
The sources are displayed outside the frame, 18 supporting f for 876, “A” for 1739. (As the first potential ancestor of 876,
424, has a lacuna here, the ancestor with rank number 2, 18/2, is displayed.)
In the chart
connected to the graph (“Show Table”),
you find the witnesses displayed outside the frame (from which witnesses inside
the frame are derived) under G0. The variant they read is indicated under
VARID. The descendants of witnesses under the heading G0 are listed under G1,
e.g. 876 as descendant of 18. 18 has the ranking number 2 as potential
ancestor, apparent under N0. In column G2, a descendant of 876 is found in the
line of 876. Under the heading N1, one can find the ranking number that the
ancestor (under G1) possesses in the ancestor list of a descendant (under G2).
All these details can also be obtained with the graph.
There is still important
additional information in the table. It is found in the columns PEV0, PEV1 etc
(PEV = percentage of equal variants). For example, the percentage in the first
line of the column PEV0, 92.695 specifies the agreement of 18 (G0) and 876
(G1). It is the same percentage we find when we look for the potential
ancestors of 876 in the “Potential Ancestors” module (column PERC1). If there are
several descendants of the same ancestor, they are displayed in the subsequent
generation column beginning with the line in which the ancestor is listed (e.g.
429, 630 and 1751 for 2200; 522, 636, and 1490 for 429). The percentages under
PEV4 show how different various agreement values can be, although the ranking
number remains the same. Thus, the ranking numbers may indicate that there is a
chance that a potential ancestor may become a stemmatic ancestor in an optimal
substemma. The percentages of agreement, however, must additionally be
consulted in order to assess the possibility of merely coincidental agreements.
At any rate, the
TFD for 11:8/12-18c suggests that variant c
emerged from variant f in 876, and from variant a in 1739. To put the split of the attestation to the test, set Connectivity
to “Absolute” and notice the TFD produced. Now, 876 is forced into the strand
led by 1739 with 1490 as potential ancestor with rank number 42. The values
shown in the table behind the graph indicate an agreement rate of 89.085. To
assess this value, one has to consult the list of potential ancestors of 876. It
shows that the percentage of agreement of 876 with 1490 is lower than that with
the majority text, but still higher than its average and median agreement
rates. The agreement values descending continuously from 93.248 in 424 and
92.695 in 18, however, show how slight the chance is that 878 actually copied
variant c from one of the other
witnesses in the c attestation.
Example 9:3/20-22c
This variant is
attested by the majority of Greek witnesses and could theoretically be the
initial one according to internal criteria (see the discussion of the passage
in K. Wachtel, “Constructing Local Stemmata for the ECM of Acts: Examples,” TC 20 (2015), p.10). The TFD, however, provides decisive arguments
against this presumption.
If we set
Initial Reading to c and Connectivity
to 10, we get a coherent TFD with seven “A”-related witnesses at the top. The
data behind the graph, however, show that most of the direct relationships with
“A” are weak. 08 and 044 both agree with “A” at less than 90% and their lists
of potential ancestors are extensive. This means that they have many special
readings and are in a text with an early basic stratum. For 33, 623, and 1409,
the agreement with “A” is higher. In this attestation these witnesses are
featuring the best relationships with the early phases of transmission
represented by “A”. For 35 and 431, the figures after the slash indicate that
they have more closely related potential ancestors in other attestations. This
weakens the support of the Byzantine mainstream, which is led by 35. In
conclusion, this attestation is far weaker than the one for a, where all other “A”-related witnesses
are assembled. Thus it is more likely that the connection with καί is secondary, probably because this appeared apt to start the report about a
sudden incident. Moreover, such a change could very well occur attractive to
more than one editor or scribe, which justifies setting the connectivity lower.
The user may experiment with the parameters and see, for example, how the TFD
is influenced by IR = a and
Connectivity = Low. The graph now shows four strands with relationships to
potential ancestors supporting a in
the b attestation. This remains the
same if you leave open the question of which variant is initial (Initial
Reading = ?), although in that case,
P74 takes the place of “A” as first potential ancestor of 33.
A cross check
can be made by looking at the TFD for a
using the same parameters (IR = ? and Connectivity = Low). The resulting graph basically
shows a very coherent attestation comprising the earliest witnesses otherwise
related to “A”. Only one incoherency gives reason to assume that occasionally a
connection with καί was preferred to a postponed τέ.
5. “Coherence at Variant Passages” Module
a. Purpose of the Module
This module
should assist the user to develop an overview of all the relations between the
variants of a variant passage.
The result can
be regarded as a summary of all results that one would receive if the module “Coherence in Attestations” was applied to
all variants of a variant passage.
b. The Data Entry Form
This form is
derived from the one used in the “Coherence
in Attestations” module, where most of the same options are selectable (see
above). Additionally, we find the option group “Display Mode”.
The “Qualified:
All Interrelations” option displays relations that are possible based
on the respective strongest genealogical coherence between witnesses of
different variants. The “Qualified: Interrelations of the first order
only” option causes a limitation of the result: relations between
variants will only be displayed if — in reference to the descendant — the
potential ancestor in an ancestor list has ranking number 1.
c. Result and Interpretation
Example 9:3/20-22, default option
The textual
flows that emanate from potential ancestors with ranking number 1 are displayed
in blue, the others in green. The numbers shown with the green relations
indicate the ranking number of the potential ancestor.
For the
suggested example, there is only one green arrow pointing from 429 to 323. The
relationships between witnesses of a
and c reflect what was said above
about 9:3/20-22c as an example for applying the “Coherence in Attestations”
module. In addition, the graph suggests that variants b and d are derived from c.
1 The
variants of the majority text were determined by a selection of nearly pure
representatives of the Byzantine text (cf. ECM III.2 Supplementary Material,
2.2 Codices Byzantini). Where these representatives point to a split Byzantine
attestation, it is not possible to determine the majority reading with
certainty. Such passages were not included for determining the MT value in the “Potential Ancestors
and Descendants” module.
2
If x is the number of passages where the manuscript is extant, y the number
of passages where the majority text is defined, z the number of passages where
the manuscript agrees with the majority text, then MT
= z/y and MT/P = z/x.